Clinical significance of circulating macrophage markers across different stages of prostate cancer: highlighting soluble CD163
Menée à partir d'échantillons sériques prélevés sur 807 patients atteints d'un cancer de la prostate, cette étude évalue, en fonction du stade de la maladie, les niveaux de deux marqueurs de macrophages (sCD163 et sSIRP alpha) ainsi que leur valeur pronostique
Background : The clinical significance of circulating macrophage markers in prostate cancer (PC) is largely unexplored. Here, we hypothesised that serum levels of the macrophage markers CD163 and SIRP
α might be associated with disease aggressiveness and hold prognostic potential in PC, where novel prognostic biomarkers are needed.
Methods
:
Soluble CD163 (sCD163) and SIRPα (sSIRPα) were measured in serum by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays in three PC cohorts representing different disease stages (N
= 646 patients in total). Prognostic results in metastatic castration-resistant PC (mCRPC) were validated in an independent cohort (N = 161).
Results : Serum levels of sCD163 and sSIRP
α were significantly higher in patients with metastatic vs localised PC (p
< 0.05). In general, serum sCD163 and sSIRP
α levels were not associated with clinical parameters of disease aggressiveness in patients with hormone-sensitive PC (p
> 0.05). In mCRPC, high serum sCD163 levels predicted shorter progression-free survival (PFS) on first-line treatment independent of standard clinical parameters in both the training and validation cohort (training: HR: 1.77 (1.12–2.78), p = 0.014; validation: HR: 1.85 (1.15–2.97), p = 0.011).
Conclusions : Circulating levels of sCD163 and sSIRP
α were increased in patients with metastatic compared to localised PC. Further, higher sCD163 levels predicted worse PFS in mCRPC, suggesting potential as a future minimally-invasive biomarker to aid mCRPC prognostication.
British Journal of Cancer , article en libre accès, 2026